Prusa Jr. Chastises & Leaves THINGIVERSE ><

Prusa Jr., the man behind the famous Prusa Mendel design, denounces the new Thingiverse Legal Terms of service, and the closed source nature of the MakerBot Replicator 2

In a post on Thingiverse, Prusa initiated an "Occupy Thingiverse" movement and has called on RepRap Hobbyiests to spread his message.

Prusa states he will be removing his designs from Thingiverse.com:

"I'm leaving Thingiverse after seeing updated Terms of use thingiverse.com/legal , over next few days I will remove all my stuff. It will be downloadable on my website josefprusa.cz or reprap.org I prefer to by owner of my own designs :-)

Also Replicator 2 is Closed Source, at least everything looks like it and guy on Makerbot support phone told me so.
Check out my open letter to Bre Pettis here josefprusa.cz/open-hardware-meaning/

Link it, tweet it, comment it! Help the cause and show them we want it Open Source!

Print the Test Cube as ugly as you can and post picture of it as "I made one" :-)

For those of you who haven't been following the discussion, the issue is with Section 3.2 of the new TOS; in particular, the last sentence.

QuoteYou agree to irrevocably waive (and cause to be waived) any claims and assertions of moral rights or attribution with respect to your User Content.

The upshot of this is that Thingiverse (and MakerBot) are attempting to give themselves the right to do anything they like with your design, regardless of the license that you chose to publish it under.

If you decided to publish something under a "No commercial use" license, Thingiverse (and MakerBot) could sell it anyway, because the act of uploading it gives them an unlimited license to do whatever they like with your design.

But I don't see the point of that, either. It's trivial to work around the GPL by simply re-doing a design. The difficult part of a design is the idea behind it, and wether the idea works. Neither is protected by the GPL, not even "morally".

Serious development requires version management anyways and Thingiverse doesn't feature that. So the loss of it is manageable.

Traumflug Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> But I don't see the point of that, either. It's
> trivial to work around the GPL by simply re-doing
> a design. The difficult part of a design is the

You can get around any licence by doing that. But that won't stand in court if you get sued for IP rights violation.
GPL and other licenses are just the first line of defence. Ultimately, it's court's decision, regardless of what the license says.

> idea behind it, and wether the idea works. Neither
> is protected by the GPL, not even "morally".

GPL is not the only license out there. In fact, the offending article of the license seems like a blanket approach to dealing with any claims of ownership / retractions / lawsuits that someone might direct at Thingiverse after uploading something there. At a guess, the new license might've been an ill-written attempt at washing hands of responsibility for anything that happens to your content after it's uploaded, as well as blaming you should the content turn out to be stolen IP from elsewhere.

I've seen similar bad wording on photo and art sharing sites. Whenever they pop up, someone screams bloody murder and they get revised. I doubt there was a true sinister motive behind it (but it surely served nicely to enhance Prusa's point about Replicator 2 - which is much more deserving of the media attention this all will surely get, but is nowhere near as bombastic as OCCUPY THINGIVERSE!).

> Serious development requires version management
> anyways and Thingiverse doesn't feature that. So
> the loss of it is manageable.

There was serious development decades and decades before version management came to resemble anything even near what it is today. But that's completely beside the point, because Thingiverse isn't a development hub. It's a distribution hub.

Interestingly the blog post has a comment made by madscifi requesting explanation on this very subject. There seems to be no response.

Quotemadscifi
February 12, 2012 @ 5:27 pm

It would be nice if the premier place for sharing open objects was based on open software. Requiring objects to be “open” but strictly locking down the website is rather ironic.

“2.1 License. Subject to these Terms of Use, Company grants you a non-transferable, non-exclusive, license to use the Site and Services for your personal, noncommercial use.”

Can a person or a business browse the site looking for objects to print and sell? Is that commercial or personal use?

“3.2 … You agree to irrevocably waive (and cause to be waived) any claims and assertions of moral rights or attribution with respect to your User Content.”

Why is this necessary?

(note: emphasis added)

--------------

Conclusion for me:

Contrary to what is implied above, this is not a sudden change of the terms-of-use by Makerbot. The issue has been raised in the past by a thingiverse user and was not answered for whatever reason, I'm assuming a unintentional oversight (Hanlon's razor , not that i'm calling anyone stupid . )

Thingiverse has proven to be a very useful resource, it is simple and works well. It would be a shame to throw it out too hastily.
What would help of course is a clear explanation of the terms of use to people who are not lawyers and are not familiar with and anglo-saxon legal system. E.g. make a list of things the user can do and what Thingiverse/Makerbot can and will do.

This crowd has proven to be very sensitive to copyright issues, it would be wise to thread carefully or risk alienating an important group of contributors. Not only would this be bad for Thingiverse, I also believe it would set back the 3d printing and open hardware community significantly if designs would be scattered on the web.

As far as credibility goes, I personally believe that Makerbot should take a stance on it's open source/ closed source nature. Personally i have the impression (which may or may not be correct) that it is very two-faced in it's communication e.g. claiming to be open-source but being only partly open-source. I do believe the latter is possible and even reasonable for a company to do (in some cases), but it should be communicated clearly and openly.

The problem is that Makerbot has been taken over by the suits and not a soul one has said differently. Heck, the new Replicator is $2k (PLA only, no ABS) or $2.7k (ABS and PLA) and they never mention hobbyists or hackers. Their new direction is all corporate and if I had a viable alternative to Thingiverse I would leave them too.

Oh, I can't even get through to Thingiverse right now it just times out.

evilb Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Contrary to what is implied above, this is not a
> sudden change of the terms-of-use by Makerbot. The
> issue has been raised in the past by a thingiverse
> user and was not answered for whatever reason, I'm
> assuming a unintentional oversight (Hanlon's razor
> , not that i'm calling anyone stupid . )

Exactly my point. I seriously doubt this was an intentional wording devised to screw someone out of their rights to their own IP.

And it's an issue that has been popping up here and there on various x-sharing sites (where x is anything, from music to photos). Every time it did, there was lots of noise and the objectionable article was removed from the licence agreement. I'm guessing there's a template all the lawyers just keep copy/pasting whenever someone asks them to draft a licence agreement for a content sharing site.

But Prusa realised it can be used as a nice accent to it and use it he did (for better or for worse - it will draw much more attention to Replicator 2 and it's closedness, which is good, but also create much more polarisation in the community, which is bad).

We were polarized? I don't call being polarized having a million and one models of RepRap polarizing but on the contrary as it seems, from the outside looking in, as just a hodge podge ragged ruffians trying to take over the corporate world ala Occupy Wall Street type of a movement. Now I have nothing wrong in that last part but the first part has always concerned me. Make 2 or 3 models with a distinction of what the differences are and why there are differences and improve on each model and that would correct the aforementioned issues that I see.

As far as Bre is concerned I think he is being led around like a sheep to the slaughter as he sold his soul to make his dream and he can't stop what is happening as the devil is the conductor of his train. Adrian I have no idea if he is just a sell out or if he is just watching his piece of the MakerBot get turned ugly. I think it may be a tad of both.

So, if my rights as the owner a waived by uploading designs to thingiverse, does this also mean that my responsibility is also waived? If something I upload injures someone or their property, does that mean that, by this statement, they are liable for that injury irrespective of the source of the design?

crispy1 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> We were polarized?... (Removed for brevity)
>
> If anyone is doing the polarizing here it's you.
> Tone down the rhetoric, please. Your personal
> attacks on Bre and Adrian show an ignorance of the
> history of RepRap.

I said how I feel and what I have seen from both of them over the years. You don't like it? Tough noodles. Let them prove that what I see and think are wrong not you.

edit: pssst, I am not the only one who thinks as I said and as far as history goes that means nothing. History of the RepRap was never to make large sums of cash but if it did fine but not at the expense of others or by ignoring IP at least if it were those things were only known to Adrian at the birth of RepRap. As far as Bre goes he always reminded me of a wanker and still does but I still think he has been swept away by his capital investors and they will screw anything for a buck.

So, I say again you might not like what I said but I said it and it is out there and I am not alone in these thoughts.

edit 2: Seems these forums are being murdered today as they are extremely slow and cranky.

Now, everyone knows I have been somewhat critical of Makerbot. But this is ridiculous of the community.
The thingiverse terms of service have not changed. So someone starts a big ruckus. Everyone starts taking their stuff off of thingiverse.

Give me a break. This should be a calm discussion. I love thingiverse, and have never paid a dime for it!

Can we all calm down. Give Makerbot and Thingiverse a chance to breath.

I deleted all my work off of thingiverse and it's being moved to a personal website. I suggest you do the same.

Given today’s situation, It's more productive for us as a group to start something new and completely open source owned and operated by the users..... not vendors.

One route would be similar to Mountain equipment co op,......you buy a share ($1)in the company to get into the club.

Doing this will provide funds for servers, software,administration and legal enforcement., and as it grows over time it's possible for dividends to be paid to the shareholders and next to impossible to get overtaken due to the volume of single shares issued.

And just talking about it and not removing objects sends them a clear signal - that people aren't serious. Taking things down represents a real threat to their business model if enough people do it.

In the end what we need is clarification.

neoteric Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Now, everyone knows I have been somewhat critical
> of Makerbot. But this is ridiculous of the
> community.
> The thingiverse terms of service have not changed.
> So someone starts a big ruckus. Everyone starts
> taking their stuff off of thingiverse.
>
> Give me a break. This should be a calm discussion.
> I love thingiverse, and have never paid a dime for
> it!
>
> Can we all calm down. Give Makerbot and
> Thingiverse a chance to breath.
>
> Rumors and silliness. For pete’s sakes, grow up
> people.
>
> Give them a chance to discuss!!

akhlut Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I think their silence speaks volumes.
>
> And just talking about it and not removing objects
> sends them a clear signal - that people aren't
> serious. Taking things down represents a real
> threat to their business model if enough people do
> it.
>
> In the end what we need is clarification.
>
I agree with you and this is not the time, nor is there ever a time, to be tactful or politically correct. Laid it out there and if they say nothing then we know we were right and if they do say something watch how they say it more than what they say.

Idol, that is what I meant by watching what they do not what they say and it is unnerving. I know at least some among us are fans of Makerbot (fan is short for fanatic so lets not forget that) so anyone who tries to take up for Makerbot or just says "go along to get along" is suspect in my eyes as they probably have ulterior motives.

I have seen that type of legal mumbo jumbo even on Photobucket before but people did get a letter/email saying that if you don't like the changes you may remove your stuff and close out your account by such and such date else it means you accept the changes. What did we get from Bre? A little box is on Thingiverse telling us, after the fact, that everything is fine and that this change came in February. Not cool.

Fixing Misinformation with Information
POSTED BY BRE PETTIS ON THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 2012 IN INSIDE STORY
There is some misinformation that I’d like to clear up.
Question 1: Is the MakerBot Replicator 2 Open Source?
We’re working that out and we are going to be as open as we possibly can while building a sustainable business. We are going to continue to respect licenses and continue to contribute to the open technology of 3D printing, some of which we initiated. We don’t want to abuse the goodwill and support of our community. We love what we do, we love sharing, and we love what our community creates. I believe strongly that businesses that share will be the winners of tomorrow and I don’t think that’s a secret. Even companies like Google and IBM are embracing open source and finding new ways to share these days.
I’m looking forward to having conversations with folks at the Open Hardware Summit to talk about how MakerBot can share as much as possible, support it’s 150 employees with jobs, make awesome hardware, and be sustainable. Will we have to experiment to make this happen? Yes, and it’s going to take a lot of collaboration, cooperation, and understanding.
I wish there were more examples of large, successful open hardware companies. From a business perspective, we’ve been absurdly open, more open than any other business I know. There are no models or companies that I know of that have more than 150 employees that are more open. (Would love to be wrong, but I don’t think I am.) We are experimenting so that we can be as open as possible and still have a business at the end of the day. Will we be successful? I hope so, but even if we are not, everyone will find out that either being as open as possible is a good thing for business or that nobody should do it, or something in between. I personally hope that we succeed, not just because I love what people make with MakerBots and I love the employees that make these machines but because I believe that MakerBot as a business can create a new model for businesses to learn from. I don’t plan on letting the vulnerabilities of being open hardware destroy what we’ve created.
The most successful open source hardware businesses that I know are businesses that create educational projects. Adafruit, Evil Mad Science, and Sparkfun are all doing awesome. Companies like Chumby and OpenMoko didn’t make it, despite having really smart folks involved. A lot of hardware projects on Kickstarter are open source, but I haven’t seen any scale up yet. Again, I would welcome any examples of large open source hardware companies here. There is something very powerful here to observe. Hardware companies that make projects are the most successful at being open source.
We are going to continue to contribute to projects that we’ve started and to other open source projects. I’ve been a fanboy of EFF and FSF for long enough to respect licenses. I was a teacher for many years and know that when you share with a respectful community, everyone in that community wins.
We are actively working on a developer program to create cutting edge emerging stuff. We look forward to finding ways of creating win/win situations with developers and companies. Thankfully, not everyone is out to get a free lunch, both Ultimaker and many RepRap projects have contributed to the technology and show that we can work together and stand on each other’s shoulders.
This isn’t the first change we’ve made to become more of a professional business, and it won’t be our last.
Question 2: Did Thingiverse terms of use change to “steal” people’s things.
Thingiverse does not steal. We created Thingiverse to be the greatest place to share things using open licenses. The terms, that we set up in February of this year, allow us to share your designs on our website and protect us from companies with lawyers. Could we make that more user friendly? Yes, but lawyers cost money and making it simple for people to understand will cost many hours of lawyer time. I’ve put it on our todo list for 2013 to make the terms easier to understand and avoid misunderstandings. If you’re concerned about this make sure to read the post that I wrote earlier this year about the terms of use on Thingiverse.